Whale Rider: Newspaper Assignment

Whale Rider:
The Paikea Weekly Times
You will be creating a range of articles and contributions for The Paikea Weekly times, a small community newspaper in a small coastal town in New Zealand.

Complete SIX items – each person in the pair must choose one item from each section (you might to chose more than one from the last section to fill up any spare space)

Create a newspaper broadsheet – cutting and pasting from word documents, hand drawn material and finding photographs of the characters from the internet. DO NOT CUT AND PASTE INFORMATION FROM THE INTERNET – THIS IS PLAGARIASM!

SECTION ONE – A general article centred on your character
What happened to your character that is newsworthy? How could you talk about your character – how would the language sound? You are a reporter and your audience is the population of a small town – everyone knows everyone and everyone reads your paper! Aim for 200 words.

SECTION TWO – A town based article 200 words. You must use three or more of the words in the box in this article!

- Paikea’s birth, her mother’s death and her father leaving for Germany
- Her father’s return with new partner, a new beginning (Porourangi)
- The training of the boys for leadership by Koro
- The loss of the whale bone necklace, and its recovery
- Pai becoming the new leader, and how tradition has changed
- The beaching of the whales, the whale rider (Pai), Pai returning
- The passing of the leadership to Pai, the ceremony, the boat, Porourangi’s return

SECTION THREE – A minor, side article- Birth/Death notices – The whales – their myth? Presence/sightings?
- Weather Report – Looking back in time – the ancestral myth/past
- School Notices – for the performances, Pai’s speech

~ by ksasaunders on June 12, 2008.